Saturday, June 13, 2009

65 comments:

LoveJaneBirkin
said...

I just found out my local cinema is having a Deneuve retrospective with Les parapluies de Cherbourg, Belle de Jour and Le dernier métro. I'm so there! Sorry, but this is Flanders, Belgium only ;). Btw, anyone have some suggestions concerning the divine miss Deneuve? Aside from the aforementioned classics, that is!

I just saw UP last night and totally loved it. But there was this one scene where the old man is dropping the boy over the city by some sheets, and then they just moved to the next scene with out saying what happened or if it was just a fantasy. It was unsetteling in the story line and I wondered if it was some kind of joke? I'm not sure how I feel about it. Is the audience obligated to know everything, or can we have a space to decide for ourselves what happened?

Oh, and i sat next to this young couple who talked for the first 15 minutes of the movie. They were commenting on everything and asking questions. I finaly had to say "why don't you watch and find out what happens." HELLO! A movie theatre is not your own living room. just shut up!! UP!! UUUUP!!!!

I need to vent about overrated movies... some films I will just never understand why everyone else loves, but I don't. And people have tried to explain to me their brilliance, but I still don't see it. So here I go, in no particular order:

The Usual Suspects, The Dark Knight, Dr. Strangelove, High Noon, The Wrestler, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Curiously Boring Case of Benjamin Button, Bringing Up Baby, It Happened One Night

I really dislike both The Usual Suspects and Benjamin Button, so I'm with you on that, Jordan. However, anyone who doesn't love Bringing Up Baby is dead to me. Also, I now want to move to Belgium: a magical land where they have Deneuve retrospectives and have devoted Jane Birkin fans. I'm getting my passport ready right now.

Chris na... try sitting next to people doing that in a BROADWAY HOUSE. i can't imagine why people pay that much money to talk over something. argh.

(i don't remember that scene from UP...?)

Jordan ... i find a few of those ridiculously overworshipped myself but i have to say huhWHATnow to see It Happened One Night and Bringing Up Baby in your mix. Those movies are just B-L-I-S-S. maybe you just don't have the screwball comedy gene?

In the past 2 weeks I've seen Up, Funny Girl, Roman Holiday, A History of Violence, The Little Foxes, Jezebel, Slumdog Millionaire, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lost In Translation, Muhulland Drive, Elegy, Blindness all for the first time.

I'm exhausted.

I also watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (don't judge) on HBO and I think Amber Tamblyn is a really good actress...better than America Ferrara. Why doesn't she do more movies?

I loved The Usual Suspects. Not sure what's to explain about it, it's just a great thriller.But I would need a lot of explaining about the greatness of The Dark Knight.A few days ago I saw Sullivan's Travels on TCM. I've seen it before but I'd forgotten what a great movie it is. Also,just saw Paris, Texas last night for the first time if you can imagine that. I have to say I can't believe how come I didn't see it until now. It was absolutely majestic.

Personally, I don't believe in the concept of a movie being overrated. Just because lots of people love a movie and you don't, doesn't mean it's overrated. That implies that the group of people is wrong and you're the voice of reason. That's just silly.

- I'm just looking forward to seeing what Kate Winslet's next movie/project is going to be now that she has her Oscar. If she gets another Eternal Sunshine role, I will be ecstatic. But really it'd be nice to see her in a movie that doesn't come out in December.

- Can't wait to see the next Harry Potter movie. Why isn't it July yet? Also, what?

- How pissed am I that the theater that I saw Up on did NOT play the short right before? I mean I would see the movie again at a different theater, but money's tight. So now what do I do? Gah!

- Seeing the trailers for Shutter Island, 9, and Where the Wild Things Are make me oh so very very very happy. They need to be here. Now.

So timely, Nathaniel! Criterion is releasing amazing titles this month and next month! Special Edition of The Seventh Seal, A documentary on Bergman called Bergman's Island, two Godards, one of my all time favorites Last Year at Marienbad, and REPULSION! The list is orgasmic.

Another thing I wanted to bring up is how sad it makes me that films such as: Two Women, ROme: Open City, Bergman's Face to face, and the Conformist have such poor DVD treatment. Open City is un watchable! the subtitles are scarce and it needs restoration badly!

Chris, that scene in Up was a fantasy by the old man. He was imagining a way to get the kid out of the house. I think the kid falls off the sheet, right? Then it cuts back to reality where the old man shakes his head, no, he can't do that.

- The last movie I saw was on tv and it was The Bonfire of the Vanities. It made me remember The House of Spirits and I started wondering what happens in the process of making certain big projects meant to be great and that result in something terrible.

- I've been listening to one of your podcasts (yes I know, The Bonfire of the Vanities, a podcast from January (?), I guess I'm slow). And I have to confess I'm one of those not attracted by Brad Pitt really, I mean it. For that kind of über-perfection in man, I prefer David Beckham. Being equally officially handsome if you get soccer player legs added to the pack... Brad who?

- I was also wondering what you're going to do once the Vanity Fair Hollywood issue series is over. And I came to the conclusion you should do your own Hollywood issue once a year. Just like those "Month of ...", one post for each one on the "cover" that could be for real legends, real next big things, etc. And having photoshop who needs to take the real pictures?. Just a suggestion.

I've had KISS ME, STUPID (the Billy Wilder comedy) sitting here from Netflix for about two and a half months. I want to see it, but the fact that it's 2 hr+ and a zany comedies has just left it collecting dust on my desk...

Not a rant per se, but why is that female voices are rarely if ever used to narrate movie trailers? I can't remember where a woman's voice - that wasn't a character in the film being promoted -- was used to sell the movie. Would a female voice sink a movie's chances? Any thoughts? Thanks, Nate and all.

dashdog GREAT QUESTION. it's never occurred to me. i bet they've done research and researched said no to women. betcha anything. it sucks but people really do prefer men for everything. I can't believe (for instance) every top ten list of anything i read on the net about movies and invariably the top ten "this type of character: funniest/ badass/villain/hero/WHATEVER" it is almost always 90% men.

Nathaniel, I don't mind screwballs, actually. His Girl Friday is my all-time favorite comedy. What I don't like, however, is weak female characters that are flighty and unfocused (i.e. Kat Hepburn in every comedy she was ever in and Colbert). Rosalind Russell is a force to reckon with in HGF, which is why I love the film so much; she's an even match for her male counterpart.

And no, I don't think my opinion is the 'be all, end all' word on every film, Glendon.

Adelutza, I will say what Ebert said of the film. It's all about manipulation, which I hate. Tell your story the way it is. I'm smart enough to figure it out on my own. I don't need a film deliberately trying to trick me throughout it's entire duration.

Liz i am embarrassed to say that i already looked at the photos! i couldn't help myself. He *IS* an Oscar winner after all. I'd look at them if it was Shelley Winters, you know?

as i tweeted my only regret about teh photos is that he's not spray painted GOLD to drive home the Oscar winner naked point!

ANYWAY...

the thing i feel bad for him about is everyone getting all high and mighty about YOU SHOULD NEVER TAKE SEXY PICS. my basic feeling is it's the same thign people do when someone makes a mistake parenting or makes a mistake at work and everyone starts clucking about "omg. who would ever make such a mistake" when it reality almost everyone makes the mistakes that celebrities and bad parents and coworkers make. they just don't have to deal with it if they don't get caught.

and regarding nude photos: before anyone gets high and mighty about that (although i assume the TFE reading crowd is cooler than that) I worked in a one hour photo shop in high school (when you used to have to take your photos in to be developed... ah the unprivacy before digital photography) and I *KNOW* how many people take nude photos. Even when they are (or were as the case may be) fully aware that someone (the developer) is going to be seeing them.

but given that Dustin Lance Black parades around in low riders and shirtless in photoshoots... maybe he doesn't actually care about people seeing his body?

I've just sat and watched In The Bedroom with my flatmate. When I asked him what he thought he said "meh, it was ok". He also didn't know who Sissy Spacek was. Please say I'm not alone in being irrationally annoyed when people don't think the exact same things that I do.

I agree with Jordan about The Usual Suspects. My beef with it is mainly that

(MAJOR SPOILER)

the last scenes render absolutely everything that happened before pointless. So it was all fabrication? So in other words Verbal's entire confession could have been about Teletubbies and it would have had no effect whatsoever on the outcome?

I see Meryl Streep is in talks with Alexander Payne to co-star in Downsizing with Paul Giamatti and Reese Witherspoon. This pic to be written & directed by Payne. I can't wait to see Meryl in an Alexander Payne movie (Election, Sideways, About Schmidt are his claim to fame so far). It should be a smash...

Dear nathaniel, Recently I've been going on imdb and people are complaining with Juno. I'm a lover of Juno and anyone with a bad reason for disliking this movie can go suck on a sagging vagina. 1) unrealistic- how is it unreal. How no one talks like Juno and no one acts like her. There's 6 billion people on earth. 300 million people in America. Most of those people are teenagers or were teenagers. Are they telling me not one person thats living is not like Juno. What the fu** is wrong with them. I completely relate to her and I know a girl in my music class that is a Juno, just differently named. 2) bad example- apparently this movie is a motivation to get pregnant cause supposedly this movie makes carrying an organism inside your body for more than half a year cool. No this doesn't. What dumba** republican thinks girls are gonna take the risk of drastically changing their lives to be like a fictional character. Only nine year olds are that easily influenced and its not like their gonna go to a corner then get it up. And the guy is gonna wonder why she doesn't want him to wear a condom and if she explains her true wishes its not like he's gonna be eager to be bleeker. 3) positive- alright so because the parents didnt hit her they were to unrealistic as parents. Because Juno didnt cut herself and contemplate on whether to pull off a kurt cobain she handled the situation to positive. Obviously the dad us a chill guy so by genetics Juno is reasonably also laid back. So of course she doesn't have to spiral into a drug abusing depressing black hole. Pregnancy isn't armeggedon. There's a girl in my science class thats preggers and she's not freaking out at all. Didnt people see Juno have a breakdown. She said people are talking behind her back. There are things in the movie that indicate she's suffering but people are being ass-holic and not paying attention. She was obviously breaking down but she's not emotional so she hides her pain. There are more things I'd like to point out but I shouldn't go on. Its an incredible movie that is original and deservedly won an oscar. Sincerely, Juno's gimp

Okay. I've already disgraced myself on J.D.'s Facebook profile by stating I think Sullivan's Travels is a weak film, but here goes again. Does anybody agree with me that it's hugely overrated? To be fair, I have only watched it once but I can't see myself ever repeating the experience. I kept checking my watch to see how long was left - and when the film's only 90 minutes long, that's a problem. I just thought the point was laboured way too forcefully and even worse, for a film espousing the benefits of comedy to the masses, it's supremely unfunny itself. Thoughts?

Lena, totally agree with you. I start my morning by trying to recognize all of the celebrities at the top of the page, but their always seem to be one or two that I can't figure out. Which drives me insane.

I keep thinking about what a friend told me about a woman writer she liked (and I wish I knew the name of the writer and her site). This writer said that her initial judgement of movies is based on 3 things:

1) the movie must have more than one woman in it.2) these women must have a conversation.3) the conversation cannot be about men.

And surprisingly few movies meet these simple criteria. So since then, I keep thinking of my favorite movies to see if they have these three things.

Rant: I was looking forward to The Brothers Bloom and 500 Days of Summer. But apparently we're not going to get them, even though there is NOTHING else new showing.

@Catherine - I don't know if Sullivan's Travels is overrated or not - it might as well be - I'm only talking about what I like and I don't like. You know, one's trash is other's treasure. But I'm not opposed to discussing what I liked about it: it's funny and Veronika Lake looks divine. It might have a lecture tone on parts but all in all I enjoyed it.

with Dustin Lance Black, i have to admit i did take a look. yes, i know. it was shameful. it's just when i looked at those Scott Caan pics. They weren't sexy pics but rather some pap shots. ;)

@ DJ.whoa. I'm SO stoked for The Time Traveler's Wife. I loved the book and i'm sure Rachel McAdams will do a great job. I'm still unsure of Eric Bana as the male lead, but i'm sure he'll prove me wrong. and the trailer is tonight? thanks for the info!

and i'm so pissed that i haven't seen any big summer movies yet except The Hangover (which was pretty amusing. :) )

As a man that took nude and porn pictures and experienced my mom finding and seing them, I get a little of what he´s feeling!

No matter how sucessfull and talented he it is, or how beautiful his speech was at the Academy Awards, everything is erased by the fact that we all can see him doing it, and as bottom. His dignity is gone. And I do love him! God, I feel so awnful ´cause everyone is having fun, but two things: he totally trusted his boyfriend and there´a video coming out (the pun is not on propose!)

while unfortunate, i don't believe that something like this will have such an effect like you described. Other stars like Vanessa Williams, Sylvester Stallone and more have been caught with indecent photos/videos and have gone on to successful careers. I think i even remember Brad Pitt having some full-frontal nudes taken of him...even with him with his member between his legs like a vadge. :Pthis might seem like big news now, but after a while, it will die down and be forgotten, and Black will be able to go on as a great writer. The crowd is fickle. It will be super difficult and embarrasing for him, but to say that his dignity and all the stuff he has done to be erased is kind of jumping the gun.

I'm interested to see how it plays out because i thought the book was unfilmable. (i'm sure that's not a word) Anyone who is interested in seeing the film should definitely read the book! not only for great entertainment but for coherence. :)

I always get annoyed by people that say a film is manipulative. Of course it is! All films - fiction or non fiction- are crafted to get an emotional response out of you (which is manipulation)!

I always get annoyed when people tear down the summer movie season just to elevate the fall movie season, when both have films with less than honest intentions. Sure, a lot of Summer Films are made for purely money reasons or just to please audiences. However, quite a few fall films are made purely for Oscar consideration or to seem important and topical.

Lastly, why is it such a crime to certain types of cinema fans to make a film to please people? I'm not saying you shouldn't make something that makes you think (the best types of films always do). However, some cinema fans act as if filmmakers should only make films to punish people with their ideologies.

Wow. Read the synopsis on the wiki page for The Piano.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Piano

Whoever wrote it is painting Ada to be a she-devil. Some key words:She's narcissistic, coquettish, sadistic, impulsive, has a pathological sense of self-glorification and needs to be the centre of mass attention.

Jodie Foster did a PERFECT Holly Hunter impersonation while she was paying tribute to her friend.

But the highlight of the night was from Jennifer Aniston. When she came up to accept her Crystal Award she brought down the house in laughter when she said, "I'm trying to be more careful than I have been in the past about the kind of movies I choose to be in. I kind of noticed something a few years ago that there seems to be a strange parallel between the movies I'm doing and my life offscreen. It started with The Good Girl, then of course Rumor Has It, followed by Derailed. Then there was The Break Up. If any of you have a project entitled Everlasting Love With an Adult Stable Male, I'm at table 6 and my agents are at table 12!"

I don't like trailers that give away the entire plot of a movie. Some trailers you watch, get excited, go to the theatre and then you realize "Wow, all the best parts I saw already in the preview."And I don't appreciate when people get snarky or dismissive about comedic actors or films. I believe that comedy is harder to play than drama. When you have the ability to make people laugh, that's a gift, and gifts are meant to be treasured.

Aniston can joke but she picked the men. Anyone that read gossip sites (and Aniston's people do) knew that Mayer would never be considered a stable boyfriend husband type. So indeed the joke was on her.

After a day of seeing gay movies, I have a question. Is there a writing school for gay writers? They're all the same. Of course it is my fault. I guess having a whole day devoted to rom-coms would make me feel the same way.

But seriously, I've been watching two types. First the comedies, they take the worst things of those horny straight teenager movies and mix them up with bright colors, stereotypical gay music, some eye candy et voila: inanity, but huh, gay inanity.

And then there's the other type, the dramas. A coming of age guy finds out he's gay, instantly gets into a serious relationship and will inevitably have to battle some huge drama. Cute/lovely main lead, handsome (the hunkier the better)object of attraction, straight girl who's his best friend (preferably former ex-girlfriend), some romantic music, shy sex scenes (because we want to make clear that we don't want people to believe we use sex as bait), forced happy ending or a not so happy one, but the same depressing feeling.

Don't get me wrong I'm happy there are gay movies. They're necessary and will probably help some Joe lost somewhere in his little town, but do they have to be cinematically speaking so uninteresting?

I - "Everyone" knows that these things are subjective. Anyone who doesn't isn't someone worth having a conversation with.

II - Because stating "My perception is that the film achieved a high level of acclaim doesn't match with my perception of the film's worth vis-a-vis that high level of acclaim" is too much.

2. There are people who don't like Dr. Strangelove? Wow. That hurts.

3. Marc Forester and Paul Haggis have taken turns making my least favourite film of the year from 2004-2007. I still haven't seen Quantum of Solace because of that. The very fact that Kauffman made my most hated film of 2008 makes me sad.

4. I've only seen two 2009 releases: Up and Adoration. Both are good movies.

5. Deneuve is also worthy in Repulsion and her great late career performance A Christmas Tale.